


Luffy's Law

by JadedCoral



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24706741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadedCoral/pseuds/JadedCoral
Summary: Law thoughtlessly starts a rumour about himself, and it doesn't take long for it to boomerang right back to him in the form of a bloody-nosed Luffy.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy/Trafalgar D. Water Law
Comments: 50
Kudos: 643





	Luffy's Law

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry about the timeline. I know I didn't!

There’s this person who frequents the nearby coffee shop. The reason they’ve earned a place in Shachi’s long-term memory is because of their tendency to think that they deserve all the good things in life just because they had been born perfectly asymmetrical and were aesthetically pleasing to look at.

And more so, because as of late, one of those allegedly good things happened to be Shachi’s third bestest friend Law (Penguin always being number one and Bepo hardly having to fight over the second place, because he’s always just so _nice_ , unlike Law, who is not very nice _ever_ ).

The first time that person approaches Law whilst Shachi and his posse are waiting for their orders, Shachi is kinda jealous.

The second time they ask Law out, Penguin finds it rather hilarious.

The third time it happens, even Bepo seems slightly annoyed.

The fourth time Shachi, Penguin and Bepo just look on with halted breaths as the person once again attempts to make it sound like, if anything, they’d be the one doing Law a favour if something were to happen between the two of them.

Law on other hand looks like he’s had about minus three hours of sleep last night, dead on his feet as he waits for his first hit of caffeine, which, all of them hope, will eventually help him lessen the murderous intent he’s currently emitting all over the place.

It’s the most intense situation Shachi has been in all week. And he works at a hospital.

“Why not?” they ask, somehow yet again baffled by Law’s curt refusal, which anyone could have seen coming from miles away given the general atmosphere.

Law just stares at them, and Shachi’s best guess is that he’s estimating measurements for the grave he’d make Bepo dig for their corpse in the dark hours of the night.

The tension gets broken by the always cheery employee who announces their orders are ready.

“Thank you,” Law says to the employee, taking his order and turning his back to the bane of his coffee shop-related excursions.

“I believe I asked you a question,” they demand self-importantly, as if being dismissed was not something that happened to them.

Law remains as he is and doesn’t turn to look at them, seems to consider something, takes a sip of his coffee, grimaces because it was still too hot to drink, and then says, “Because I love my boyfriend.”

Then he proceeds to exit the shop without any more dramatics.

Shachi, Penguin and Bepo promptly follow him, walking all the way to the hospital parking lot until Shachi stops so suddenly that Penguin runs into him.

“What, what?” Penguin demands before licking away the little coffee that had spilled on his fingers.

“Did Law just say he has a boyfriend?” Shachi asks as if he’d just caught up with reality.

Both Penguin and Bepo look skeptical at first, but then they realize that that was exactly what Law had just said.

“He did!” Penguin says, spilling coffee again in his excitement.

“But is it true or just an excuse?” Shachi wonders.

He and Penguin turn to look at Bepo (who, Shachi thinks, ranks Law as his bestest friend, while Shachi and Penguin are left to compete for the second place, even though in reality Bepo thinks of the two of them as a unit and there is no actual fight to be had).

“I don’t know,” says Bepo, looking helplessly between them and the hospital building Law had long since disappeared into. “I mean, it didn’t sound like an excuse to me.”

“Huh,” Shachi says in tandem with Penguin.

Interesting.

* * *

“Trafalgar has a boyfriend?” Kureha asks as she accepts the scalpel Shachi offers her.

Shachi nods, enthusiastic. “He said, and I quote, _’I love my boyfriend’_.”

“Oh-ho! _Love_ , is it?” says Kureha, smirking somewhere behind her surgical mask. “Who in their right mind would hook up with that grump?”

“He never told us! We don’t even know his type. Or that he has a type.”

She mulls over this as she cuts open the first entry point to the innards, before eventually coming to the conclusion of, “I bet he likes them the way he likes his coffee: tall, dark and handsome.”

“Actually,” Shachi says, handing her some more tools when she gestures at them with a wave of her finger. “He prefers to order a caramel latte with triple expresso when given the chance.”

“Strong and sweet, huh? Sounds more fitting, somehow.”

“Sure, if that’s the analysis we’re going with,” Shachi agrees, although he’s not sure if he does really. Then he shrugs and says, “It’s not like we have anything better to go off on.”

Instead of expressing her opinion on the matter, the nurse responsible for keeping an eye on the patient’s vitals looks at them disapprovingly, saying, “Please focus on the surgery.”

“Ooh, bossy!” says Kureha, lifting her gaze from the sight of exposed fat tissue and intestines just so that she could throw a wink at the nurse. “That’d be _my_ type.”

The nurse blushes. Shachi has no idea why.

* * *

Kureha leans against the doorframe of the hospital breakroom and considers Chopper who sits at the table hunched over his university papers.

“ _You_ adore Trafalgar,” she comments offhandedly, startling the aspiring doctor.

“Admire!” Chopper is quick to correct her. Then he takes a second to reconsider his wording, and chooses to instead go with, “I _look up_ to him!”

“Yeah, yeah,” she agrees, waving her hand to dissipate his offended attitude. “Do you know who he has hooked up with?”

Previous anger gone, Chopper looks at her confusedly. “What?”

“You’re such a good kid, Chopper,” she says, coming to stand next to him in order to mess with his hair, but he sees it coming and pulls his hood up over his head. “I’m asking if you’ve heard he has got himself a boyfriend.”

“He has?” Chopper asks, genuinely surprised.

“Yes. Also, he likes caramel lattes.”

“Like I’d care!” he says, but Kureha is pretty sure she also saw him write it down next to his notes.

Not ready to give up even though it’s clearly a dead end as far as getting information was concerned, partly because she finds it to be a hilarious rumour, she continues with her questions. “We suspect that he’s with some super sweet but strong guy now. Ring any bells?”

“No,” he says, pulling at the strings of his hood and further disappearing from sight.

“Hmph. Useless, just like I suspected.”

“Hey!” Chopper exclaims as angrily as someone who was often described as tiny ball of fluff could. “Maybe _you_ shouldn’t be here gossiping about other people’s business in the first place!”

“Whatever, kid,” she says, sighing in dramatic disappointment before turning to leave.

And she _did_ hear the, “Bastard,” that followed her, Chopper would come to learn later on.

* * *

“Do you remember Trafalgar, Kaya?” Chopper asks as they find a seat in the shade where they can properly enjoy their freshly bought ice creams.

“The scary surgeon you talk about constantly?” she asks back, ready to tune out if that was the case. Her usual custom was this: let Chopper ramble on about how amazing Trafalgar is, give minimum input and focus on peoplewatching.

“Hey! I don’t talk about him constantly!” he protests, unreasonably angry of the accusation.

“You kind of do.”

“Whatever!” he huffs, before his attitude takes a full turn. “And he might be terrifying, but he’s also _brilliant_!”

“I’m sure he is,” Kaya nods politely. “What about him this time?”

“Doctor Kureha said he has a boyfriend.”

“Oh? That’s nice.” Is it really nice? She hasn’t met Trafalgar yet, and she surely doesn’t know his boyfriend. But as a concept, she guesses, it’s relatively nice.

Chopper, too, looks unsure whether or not to call it nice.

“Apparently it’s someone super strong and sweet,” he continues, looking like he’s nearing uncharted waters with the topic of conversation and being on the verge of losing his confidence to continue talking about it.

“Apparently?” Kaya encourages him despite her previous reluctance to hear more about Trafalgar whom she would get to meet eventually when her own training started at the same hospital.

“That’s what Doctor Kureha said when she tried to ask me who his boyfriend was, but it’s not like I know.” Chopper looks a bit gloomy as he says this, and Kaya suspects it’s because no matter how much he admires Trafalgar, Doctor Kureha is the one he actually wants to impress with his skills and knowledge, regardless of the subject area.

In order to show solidarity, she says, “That makes two of us.”

“But do you know someone who might know?” He asks shyly, trying to hide the hopeful undertones by biting loudly into his ice cream cone.

“Well,” she ponders, giving it a thought. “Usopp does know a lot a people…”

Hearing this, Chopper forgets his act and turns his big, exited eyes at her. “Can you ask him?”

“Sure? But I wouldn’t keep my hopes up,” she warns him, because the descriptions do seem rather vague, and Usopp tends to be full of tall tales.

“Thanks, Kaya!” he says happily despite her warnings.

Kaya fears Chopper might have taken it as a promise that she will come bearing the correct answer to Doctor Kureha’s question. If that was the case, she doubts she has the heart to tell him it was his own fault for ending up being disappointed.

* * *

“Trafalgar?” Usopp says as if he’s trying the name out. “Trafalgar… sounds vaguely familiar.”

“You’ve met him?” Kaya asks, a bit surprised that she might actually get some search results. “Trafalgar works as a surgeon at the hospital.”

Usopp tilts his head as if that would help him rack his brain for the memory of having met a Trafalgar. “I’ve met a surgeon, but a Trafalgar? Can’t say for sure.”

“Maybe he’s visited your shop?” Kaya prompts him as she sets down the bowl of popcorn and comes to sit down next to him on the sofa.

“Hmm,” Usopp ponders, taking a handful of the prepared treat and attempting to stuff it all into his mouth. He fails and some of it drops onto the furniture and floor. Kaya will not be the one to clean those up. She hopes Usopp knows that.

“With his boyfriend?” she tries to aid him some more.

“Trafalgar with a boyfriend…” Picking at the popcorns that had fallen on the sofa and idly nibbling on them, Usopp continues to try and remember to the best of his ability.

Kaya on the other hand is starting to lose interest in the topic, and decides to give it a one last try, before she’d give up. “You sure you don’t remember having met a super scary surgeon and his super strong but sweet boyfriend?”

“No!” Usopp concludes. “I can’t recall having met them.”

“That’s fine,” she assures, reaching for the remote control, turning on the movie and leaning snuggly against Usopp. “I’ve fulfilled my promise to Tony by asking you about it.”

Usopp wraps his arm around her shoulder and promises that, “I’ll tell you if I see someone who fits the description.”

“Okay,” she says, smiling contently as she reaches out to take a handful of popcorn, a quarter of which falls gracelessly onto Usopp’s lap.

* * *

“Sorry,” Usopp says as a greeting before the customer has a chance to say anything. “Your brother’s order isn’t ready yet. We were missing some parts and we’ve had trouble getting restocked.”

“Well that’s a shame,” Sabo greets him back, although he doesn’t look like it’s actually much of a shame at all. Despite this, he approaches Usopp who’s squatting on the floor, tinkering with some knickknacks and looms over him. “Do you need help with taking care of the ‘ _trouble’_?”

“Eh, n-no, we’re good, thanks,” Usopp says quickly, avoiding eye contact and pretending to hammer more intensely as if that would help him get out of the situation any faster.

Sabo tilts his head and smiles pleasantly. “You sure?”

“ _Yes_ , I’m sure!” he insists, missing his mark under the immense pressure and accidentally hitting his thumb instead. The pain isn’t as bad as he’d anticipated it to be, because the hammering had just been an act to look busy. Still, he puts his thump into his mouth and attempts to glare at Sabo.

“But you know I could-“ the menace tries to continue, but to Usopp’s blessing, that is the exact moment Franky decides to return to their shop, bringing sweet distraction.

“Hey Franky! You’re back!” Usopp greets him a bit too enthusiastically, making Franky stop on his tracks and peer at him over his sunglasses. Then he spots Sabo and smiles brightly at him.

“Helloooo people!” he greets them both, before going further into the shop to set down the pile of boxes he was carrying.

Somewhere behind them, Sabo mutters, “Rude,” as Usopp leaves his customer behind for a bit in order to talk to Franky some more.

“How were errands?” he asks, coming to peek into the boxes Franky had brought with him.

“Amazing!” Franky proclaims loudly, and for the life of him, Usopp can’t tell if it’s sarcasm or if getting supplies for their shop had really been nothing less than amazing.

When Franky doesn’t say much else after that, Usopp gets a bit fidgety, daring a glance over his shoulders where he could see Sabo looking around. What was he doing, taking inventory?

“Oh yeah,” says Usopp in his desperation to have a lengthy conversation with someone who wasn’t Sabo. “Franky, do you remember if we know a Trafalgar?”

“A Trafalgar?” Franky tries to think as he restocks their mini fridge with all the cola he had bought. “Hmm, sounds SUPER familiar.”

“Right?!” Usopp agrees, because it’s been bothering him as well. If Franky thinks it sounds familiar, then they _must_ know a Trafalgar from somewhere.

“Right!” Franky says equally excited, before his attitude changes completely to that of not actually giving a frick. “But also, no, I don’t remember right now.”

Unfortunately, Sabo perks up upon hearing Usopp’s question, never minding the ‘ _Staff Only’_ sign and joining them at the back of the shop in order to chime in on the conversation. “Are you having ‘ _trouble’_ with this Trafalgar?”

“What? No, we aren’t having any trouble with a Trafalgar!” Usopp denies, looking hastily between Sabo who shouldn’t be here and Franky who obviously didn’t give a hoot and was already walking out of the shop to go and get the rest of his purchases from his car.

“No?” Sabo says, cornering Usopp so that there would be no polite way out of the situation. “Because if you did, I could take care of it.”

Fight or flight instincts kicking in, Usopp goes to push past the guy, but Sabo ends up letting him go by making way for him without any hazzle.

“Geez, every time I think I’ve decided which one of you is the worst...” Usopp mutters as he returns back to the front side of the shop and goes back to tinkering, determined to just ignore Sabo until he realises to leave.

“So, what’s the deal with this Trafalgar guy, then?” Sabo asks casually, flicking the ‘ _Staff Only_ ’ sign as he passes it for the second time that day.

Usopp shrugs, trying to recall everything Kaya had told him, which wasn’t much. “He just happens to have a super strong yet sweet boyfriend. Apparently.”

Sabo looks like hearing this had been an utter waste of his time. “How is that supposed to help me get Ace’s order?”

“It’s not!” Usopp finally loses his sense of self-preservation and decides to assert himself. “Now please leave and come back next week when it’s actually ready like a normal person!”

Sabo does just that, but not before tipping his hat like a gentleman. Usopp has never seen bigger a lie. And he knows a lot about lying.

* * *

Ace wakes up when someone closes the front door of their apartment, only to find out he had fallen asleep on the sofa in angles that made his neck cranky.

“Your order wasn’t ready yet,” Sabo says as he throws his keys on the sideboard and goes to wash his hands.

“What? But I ordered it, like, a week ago!” Ace whines from the living room, where he had spent most of the day watching daytime television.

Peeking his head out of the bathroom, Sabo speaks a bit louder in order to be heard over the running water. “Yeah, well, they’re having trouble getting some parts for it. I offered to help them with that but Usopp refused.”

“The audacity,” says Ace, playing along, even though the answer to the gameshow playing on the TV was just on the tip of his tongue, and he needed to concentrate on that. Then the actual participant guesses it, and just like that, he’s lost his chance to feel like he’d accomplished something that day.

“Indeed,” Sabo continues, turning off the water and trying to shake his hands dry as he exits the bathroom. “They did mention a Trafalgar and his boyfriend, but aforementioned didn’t have anything to do with the supply chain, so I guess you’ll just have to wait until next week.”

Mildly interested now, mostly because he didn’t want to commit to another gameshow trivia only to end up being disappointed in himself, Ace straightens up from his slouch and turns to look over the backrest. “Trafal-who?”

Sabo takes his phone out and scrolls a bit. When he hands it to Ace, he can see someone’s picture on the screen.

“Trafalgar D. Water Law was the best and only match I could find,” he says like it’s normal, gesturing at the picture Ace was looking at. “A creepy looking surgeon with a non-existent social media presence. He works at our local hospital.”

“You _really_ need to stop looking people up.” Ace often says this, constantly worried what a search on him or Sabo or Luffy would bring up. He says it’s called walking in someone else’s shoes, or something, which, literally, is disgusting in Sabo’s opinion.

On the other hand, it wasn’t like Ace had anything better to do at the moment other than to stalk their local surgeon. Boredom sure had the tendency to loosen his moral compass.

“Did you check the boyfriend as well?” he asks as he hands the phone back, genuinely curious.

“I need more than descriptions like ‘ _strong’_ and ‘ _sweet’_ to find people, Ace,” Sabo huffs, rolling his eyes at such a question.

“ _Obviously_ ,” Ace agrees, not knowing to this day if Sabo chose to ignore his sarcasm or if it just flew over his comprehension. His fault for never actually asking, he guesses.

“And it’s not like we know anyone who fits both descriptions, except for Luffy,” Sabo continues, after which they both laugh lightly, because thinking about Luffy makes them happy.

Their good mood is shortly lived, when a horrifying thought strikes them both at the same time.

“What if it’s Luffy?” Ace whispers, sinking into the sofa, because that's a horrible thought to have.

“Of course it’s not Luffy!” Sabo says immediately, already making a catalogue in his head of all the reasons why that would be impossible.

“But Luffy’s a cutie patootie and that’s exactly the kind of creep he’d attract,” Ace argues from the sofa crease he had sunken into, having always been more prone to pessimism than his brothers.

“Shit,” Sabo says as he sees the point Ace is trying to make. “Shit, you might be right!”

Digging his phone out from under one of the pillows he was surrounded by, Ace doesn’t waste any time and begins to type a message to the group chat belonging to Luffy, Sabo and him. “Better make sure it’s not him.”

_Ace: u know a trafalgra?_

_Luffy: lol wot_

They both sigh in relief when they read Luffy’s reply from their respective phones.

“I guess it isn’t,” Ace concludes, finally finding the strength to rise up from the sofa and stretch out his legs.

“Of course it isn’t,” Sabo agrees, shaking his head as if to reprimand himself for having such a silly thought.

Passing Sabo on his way to the kitchen, Ace tries to pump fists with his brother in an attempt to celebrate their victory. Sabo on the other hand mistakes the gesture for an approaching high-five, and in the aftermath of this mishap, they look silently at how Sabo is holding Ace’s fist awkwardly, before they both retract their hands and a wordless agreement is made that they will never mention this to anyone ever.

But both of them know that it happened.

They know, and it’ll haunt them as a memory, which will resurface every once in a while, making them shake their bodies in strange ways as they try to banish the thought of it by simultaneously saying something along the lines of, “Hvgrvharh.”

* * *

Luffy had just finished a nice combo of first punching a guy in the stomach and then kneeing him in the face, when he heard the sound of his phone announcing that a message had been received. Being a bit preoccupied, he considered ignoring it, but upon wondering who might be messaging him, thinking it might be Sanji announcing he had prepared a feast for them, then getting anxious that if he didn’t reply in time all the food would be gone, Luffy ended up checking his phone despite the surrounding circumstances.

His shoulders slouch in relief when it was just Ace asking weird questions.

“Ace is asking me if I know a trafalgra,” he tells Zoro and dodges a punch thrown his way.

“What the hell is that?” Zoro asks from where he is facing two guys with random weapons in their hands. They look gleeful still, amused by Zoro’s wooden sword. That sense of them having the upper hand would soon be gone. Both Zoro and Luffy know this. It is a pity that their opponents do not.

“I dunno,” Luffy shrugs, kicks another fellow so that he fell face down onto the ground and proceeds to sit on him as he types his reply. “Lemme ask.”

_Luffy: lol wot_

_Ace: Idk he some guy who has a boyfriend_

“Ace says it’s a guy who has a boyfriend,” he calls out to where Zoro is now facing just one guy who seems to have lost bits of his confidence.

“Ok?” his friend says, just as puzzled as Luffy is about what Ace is on about. Then he says the only thing that feels appropriate given the circumstances. “Congrats.”

_Luffy: Zoro says congrats_ , Luffy writes, before deciding that that was enough of that.

“Oh! Should I tell them that I have a boyfriend too?” he says as an afterthought just when he managed to stuff his phone back into his pocket.

Having rendered his latest opponent unconscious, Zoro eyes the ones who were left, saying, “You can do that after we’ve dealt with these guys.”

Being reminded of what he had been doing previously, Luffy jumps up energetically and smiles disturbingly brightly at the guys who were definitely not his friends. “Ah, you’re right!”

As he tried to rush off, the guy he had been sitting on grabs his ankle. Caught by surprise, Luffy loses his balance and dives nose-first on the asphalt. When they later on recall this event, all Zoro can say is that the sound of the collision was not pleasant.

* * *

“You should see the other guy,” the bruised-up thug says like he’d just won a fight.

“Uh-huh,” Smoker says, pretending to write it down on his notebook. What he _actually_ wrote was this: _‘Looks like Strawhat’s doing.’_

“I got him real good on the nose when he got distracted during our fight,” the thug continues, somehow still smug even after admitting he had gotten his punch in during a moment of weakness.

Smoker nods, writing down ‘ _Strawhat injured?_ ’ before asking, “The fight which you initiated?”

“Those two came on our turf!” the thug says in his defence.

“This is a public area, there are no turfs,” Smoker says as if he’s reading a line straight out of a textbook. Then he flips a page on his notebook and asks, “Also, those two who?”

The thug shrugs. “Some scrawny kid and this green fellow.”

“Was the kid wearing a straw hat?”

“Yes!”

“I thought so.” He writes: ‘ _Strawhat’s involvement confirmed._ ’

Somewhere behind him, Tashigi adjusts her glasses and comments, “Looks like we just missed him again.”

“You don’t need to tell me that!” Smoker barks back like it’s a bit of a touchy subject.

“Sorry!” Tashigi says quickly.

Taking a deep breath during which he inhaled more cigar smoke than actual air, Smoker tries to recollect his professionalism.

“So you got into a fight and all of you,” he says, gesturing at the group of beat-up guys he and Tashigi were questioning, “lost against two people?”

“We didn’t lose!” the most vocal of the thugs insists, trying to salvage whatever was left of his bride. Having again missed a chance to catch Strawhat right on the scene, Smoker could sort of relate. “Didn’t you hear what I said about punching the other one on the nose?”

“I did hear that,” he confirms. “You said he got distracted?”

“Yeah, he started getting texts from, I dunno, his brother or something.”

“Sounds like more trouble,” Tashigi seems fit to comment again. She’s probably right, but it doesn’t mean Smoker wants to hear it. He’d send all three of those brothers to jail if he could.

“Something about if he knew some Trafalgra dude, which sounds like a misspelling of Trafalgar, if anyone were to ask me,” the thug says, and his fellow delinquents nod to agree with him.

“No one asked you,” Smoker assures him, writing down ‘ _Trafalgar?_ ’ before amending, “But you’re probably right. Tashigi?”

Tashigi tilts her head, an action that has her glasses slipping down her nose, which she has to fix before she can say, “The only Trafalgar I’m aware of is the surgeon who works at the local hospital.”

“Sengoku’s grandkid?” Smoker says what Tashigi was too polite not to. Then he crosses his arms and frowns as he tries to figure out, “What would those brats want with him?”

“Apparently he has a boyfriend,” the thug pipes up, surprisingly chatty for someone facing an arrest for disorderly behaviour.

“Huh.” Not particularly interested in this piece of information, Smoker draws a back and forth line all over the name.

But then the thug continues by saying, “And so does this Strawhat kid. He said so himself.”

“What?!” Almost choking on his cigars, Smoker writes it down furiously.

“That’s wonderful,” says Tashigi, smiling pleasantly.

“How is it wonderful?!” Smoker scolds her. “We already have our hands full with Strawhat and now he’s probably teamed up with some likeminded ruffian! Can you even imagine the trouble it’ll cause us?”

“Sorry!” she has the decency to say.

Burying his face into his hands, Smoker mutters “Spare me…”

And all he can think is that there’s two of them out there now. _Two_.

* * *

Slapping the egologic folder made out of renewable materials and confusing instructional pictures about recycling onto the desk so that it made the maximum amount of noise, Smoker says, “Here’s the report.”

“Hrmh, what?” It’s enough to make Garp snap awake from the little impromptu nap he had decided to take at his desk, making him momentarily a bit disoriented as he tries to gather his wits and whereabouts. Once he gets all that figured out, he looks at the folder Smoker has brought him. “Oh. Yeah, thanks.”

“Make sure to read it. Your grandkid was involved. Again,” Smoker says, making sure to gauge Garp’s reaction to the news.

“Oh?” Garp says between yawns and stretches. “Which one?”

“ _Which one_ -!” Smoker exclaims, slamming his hands on the desk and glaring at his supervisor accusingly. “So you admit they’re all hooligans?”

Garp halts his stretching enough to reconsider what he had just said. Then he continues as he were and denies everything. “I said no such thing.”

Frustrated, Smoker dares to argue that, “We all know it’s true!”

This Garp does not deny. Instead he looks around his messy desk, spots a reusable takeaway coffee container, takes a sip and grimaces because the coffee inside had gone cold about two days ago. 

“Thank you for your hard work,” he says, raising from his seat in order to go get himself some water from the other side of the room. When Smoker doesn’t take the subtle cue and leave, Garp assures him that, “I’ll read your report at my earliest convenience.”

Though he’s not happy about it, Smoker decides not to push it. Instead he smirks a bit and says, “You’d better. Appendix and all.”

Then he dismisses himself and leaves Garp’s office.

Garp on the other hand finds his curiosity roused by such a peculiar comment, forgets about the water and goes to open the report he was expected to read.

* * *

“Sengoku!”

Sengoku takes a sip of his tea and turns a page on the magazine he was reading before bothering to answer Garp’s urgent calls. “What is it?”

“Can you believe this!” Garp wails, waving a yellow post-it-note in his hand as he barges into Sengoku’s office. “Luffy has got himself a boyfriend and didn’t tell me!”

Sengoku sets his tea down and turns to look at Garp, calmly saying, “I can absolutely believe that.”

“Oh yeah?” Garp seems to take it as a challenge even though there is absolutely no need for that. Well, no need until he says, “Did you know that Law has one too?”

Then he shoves the post-it to Sengoku’s face, so that he too could read it. Annoyed at the childish behaviour and not as near-sighted as he used to be, Sengoku takes the note out of Garp’s hands and brings it at an arm’s length in order to see its contents better.

In what was unmistakeably Smoker’s horrible handwriting, it read: _‘P.s. it seems like both Monkey D. Luffy and Trafalgar D. Water Law are in a relationship with a man.’_

“…” Was all he had to say about the piece of presented information.

“Ha! So you _didn’t_ know!” Garp says gleefully, glad that his old friend was in the same boat as him.

“We just haven’t caught up in a while,” Sengoku tries to defend his lack of knowledge, if only to make Garp look less smug. “I’m sure he would have told me otherwise.”

“I highly doubt that,” Garp laughs. “All you ever get is radio silence from that lack of sunshine you call a grandchild.”

While Garp may have a point about their lack of communication, Sengoku does take issue with him judging Law’s personality, even if he’s not particularly wrong on that aspect either.

“I assure you Law can be quite charming when he smiles,” he says, voice adopting the undertones of annoyance.

“Oh yeah? Bet he’s still nothing compared to my Luffy! He’s a real cutie.” Garp challenges him again, and Sengoku can’t believe he’s about to stoop to his level.

“Nobody but your family thinks that,” he says back, and that at least is true. Luffy, as far as he has gathered, is an acquired taste, not someone objectively cute.

To Sengoku’s satisfaction, it’s Garp’s turn to take offence. “What did you say?!”

Feeling a bit more confident in their little competition now that he had managed to get under Garp’s skin, Sengoku leans back more comfortably in his chair and says, “Here, let me spell it out for you senile old fool: my Law is much more of a looker.”

“You’re just biased!” Garp accuses angrily.

“As if you’re not!” Sengoku says back, his voice gaining volume for reasons he cannot fathom.

They stay there and argue for a while, until a nervous employee comes to tell them about the numerous noise complaints from the nearby open office concept where privacy was a joke. They leave the matter be after that.

For the time being, that is.

* * *

Koby straightens his back and takes a respecting stance the moment he sees Sengoku approach them with some papers in his hands.

“You two,” he says as a way of greeting Koby and Helmeppo. “I need an unbiased opinion.”

“Yes, sir!” Koby responds, proud he gets to help such a high-ranked officer.

When Sengoku shows them the two papers he was carrying, revealing printed out pictures of Monkey D. Luffy and what Koby vaguely remembers being Sengoku’s own grandchild, Koby frowns.

“Sir, since we are attempting to receive the green environmental certificate from the city, it is against company policy to print out personal documents.”

“Oh these?” Sengoku takes a second look at the papers, before deciding, “They’re for a case.”

“Yes?” Helmeppo asks, a sceptical look on his face, which Koby could never pull in the presence of an authority figure.

“Which one do you find more dateable?” Sengoku deadpans, and Helmeppo can barely contain the laughter the absurdity of the question is about to rip out of him.

Beside him, Koby blushes furiously.

“I think you’re hard-pressed to find an unbiased opinion here, sir,” says Helmeppo, struggling to speak a bit. For his betrayal, Koby kicks his ankle.

“Really?” Sengoku says, genuinely surprised when he looks at Koby, who can’t look at his superior in the eye. “I’m sorry to say but I don’t think you’re Law’s type.”

Before Helmeppo has the time to correct Sengoku’s assumptions, Koby kicks him again. Then he tries to quickly change the subject by asking, “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, why are you asking this?”

Sengoku hums, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a crumbled post-it-note, handing it to Koby.

“These two are dating,” he says, presenting the pictures he had printed against company policy side by side. Then he realises his wording had been a bit off and corrects himself, “Not each other,” but now that he had said it out loud, it made him think. “Although…” he says, turning the pictures around to take a good long look at them, before eventually deciding that, “No, definitely not each other,” but then, what were the changes of both his and Garp’s grandsons having gotten themselves a boyfriend at the same time?

Koby looks shocked by this news, so Sengoku turns to Helmeppo for an opinion.

“Long story short; Garp and I got into an argument about which one of these two is cuter. What do you think, Helmeppo?”

“I don’t wish to be a part of this conversation,” Helmeppo says honestly, trying to side-eye if Koby was doing okay after hearing such devastating news. As an afterthought, he remembers to say, “Sir.”

Taking Koby by the shoulder, he begins to guide him away from the scene, assuming they were dismissed when Sengoku just hummed as a reply to his, “If you’ll excuse us, sir.”

Considering Koby looks like he needs something strong in order to forget the memory of the past five minutes, Helmeppo takes the initiative and proceeds to take them to their favourite place of recreational therapy.

* * *

“My friend over there needs another milkshake,” Helmeppo tells the nice lady on the other side of the counter. She smiles kindly as she taps the order into the cash register and accepts Helmeppo’s money.

“He seems awfully down,” she comments, starting to gather the ingredients to yet another milkshake. She really hopes this Koby fellow is not lactose intolerant.

Helmeppo leans against the counter, and she does too, because it feels like a secret is about to be shared.

“That,” Helmeppo tells her, blindly gesturing somewhere behind him, not quite in the direction of his friend, but she gets the idea, “Is the sight of a man who lost his chance before he even knew he had one.”

“Oh no,” she says sympathetically, looking around the shop’s assortment of sweets and savouries before setting a chocolate muffin on a plate and sliding it towards Helmeppo. “Here, on the house. I hope he feels better soon.”

When she goes back to making what Helmeppo had originally ordered, he turns to look at how his friend was coping at the table where he had left him, hoping to silently celebrate the free stuff they had just received.

What he sees is Koby slouched all over the table, surrounded by empty glasses of milkshake, the yellow post-it-note of ill bearings Sengoku had given him still on his hand as he woefully stares at it.

“Koby!” Helmeppo hisses, trying to get his friend’s attention in order to make him stop looking so pathetic, even if it does get them free muffins. “Koby! Get it together, man!”

“Why?” Koby slurs, making Helmeppo think he might have had a bit too much sugar. “It’s not like I’ll ever _get it together_ with _him_.”

Thanking the kind lady for the milkshake she had prepared, Helmeppo takes the treats and heads over to the table Koby was at, reasoning, “If I recall correctly, you never expected something to happen between you two in the first place.”

“Well I didn’t!” Koby says, going straight for the milkshake and drinking half of it in record time, only to end up getting a brain freeze of which it took him a while to recover. When that’s all over and done with, he’s calmed down enough to say, “I’m happy for him, I really am, but somehow it still hurts.”

“I know, buddy,” Helmeppo says in his best attempt to console his friend. “You’ll get over it eventually.”

“I know I will,” Koby agrees. Then he laughs a bit, seemingly a bit cheerier, saying, “I guess it was just unexpected, even if Luffy tends to defy expectations. My fault, really, for taking it so badly.”

Helmeppo nods as he sips his own coffee, glad to see his friend in a better mood. Then his eyes drift to the piece of paper Koby’s still holding onto, and he points at it with the mug he’s holding.

“Why don’t you start the recovery process by getting rid of that?”

Koby looks down at it, smiles in a melancholic way, then grumbles it up into a neat little ball and tosses it over his shoulder where neither of them knows where it landed.

As they are leaving, Helmeppo makes sure to leave a good tip to the nice employee to compensate for the littering.

* * *

“So I was about to go up to those punks and give them a piece of my mind after they threw this paper ball at me,” Buggy the Clown tells Alvida during the impromptu break they had decided to have on the hospital hallway when they had bumped into each other. Surely the children at the long-term illness ward could amuse themselves a moment longer while the hospital clown was busy?

“But then I decided to open it, and you know what it read?” he continues.

“What?” Alvida asks, not really that interested.

“It said that Luffy and Trafalgar are both dating a man,” he tells her like it’s big news, but somehow she’s still not interested.

“Trafalgar as in the heart surgeon?” she asks to play along.

“Yeah, that guy,” Buggy the Clown confirms, eyes narrowing as he sees the very same guy walking in their direction on the hallway.

“But that’s, like, whatever,” he continues, partly because it’s true, and mostly because he doesn’t want Trafalgar to hear them talking about him as he’s about to walk past them.

“Is this about Luffy again,” Alvida asks, joining Buggy the Clown in mean mugging Trafalgar whilst simultaneously pushing out her chest a bit more and wrapping a strand of hair around her finger.

“Of course it’s about Luffy!” he says, keeping direct eye contact with Trafalgar as he finally passes them, matching his glare with a glare. They don’t talk to each other much, but they do like to express their distain towards each other in other ways. Looking back over his shoulder to make sure he got in the longest ill-intent, he says to Alvida, “How on earth did that twerp get a boyfriend?”

“I suppose he always did have his fair share of admirers,” Alvida comments, finally turning to look back at Buggy the Clown when both of them had witnessed how Trafalgar disappeared into a nearby room.

“I can’t imagine why,” says Buggy the Clown, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall like a delinquent. “The kid’s a nightmare. Who in their right mind would hook up with that menace?”

They try to think an answer to that question during a few minutes of silence. When they come up with nothing, they decide it's better to part ways for now, and promise to theorize later if either of them came up with any plausible ideas.

It is a promise which Alvida fully intends to break.

* * *

Law closes the door behind him with his foot, sets down the supplies he had been carrying and turns to look at Luffy who sits on the examination table, seemingly carefree despite his bloody nose.

“What beef could you possibly have with Buggy the Clown?” Law asks as he pulls on some rubber gloves.

Luffy looks confused for a second, and Law thinks it might be because he doesn’t know who he’s talking about, but then he says, “Why would I have beef with Buggy the Clown? He’s mean to dogs. I don’t like him.”

“You mystify me, sometimes” Law manages to says after he has processed what the other had just said. Then he shakes his head, takes some of the antiseptics and cotton balls he had brought with him and asks, “Well what’s this I hear about you having a boyfriend, then?”

“Buggy the Clown is _not_ my boyfriend!” Luffy says loudly, sticking his tongue out and looking like the mere thought of it disgusted him. To be fair, it disgusts Law as well.

“I sure hope not!” Law agrees, trying hard not to imagine it. He doesn’t succeed and feels a bit guilty about it.

“You having a boyfriend was just a rumour I heard,” he tries to specify as he manoeuvres a saddle chair with his leg and tried to make it stop rolling around when he has it in front of Luffy. Upon seeing Luffy’s confusion, he adds, “Spread by Buggy the Clown.”

“ _Me_?” says Luffy, his frown deepening. “ _I_ heard that _you_ had one!”

“Did Buggy the Clown tell you that?” Law asks dryly, sitting down on the uncomfortable yet apparently ergonomic chair the HR department had insisted they all use from now on.

“No,” Luffy says shaking his head, forcing Law to grab his chin in order to make him stay still. “Ace, my brother, did. With the help of Sabo, also my brother.”

When Law is done wiping most of the blood and grime off his nose and lets him go so that he could switch the cotton to a clean one, Luffy takes the opportunity and digs his phone from his pocket, browsing a bit before showing the screen to Law, asking, “This is your name, right?”

Law squints at the screen and sees a few messages written into a group chat, saying:

_Sabo: Ace misspelled the name like an idiot._

_Ace: hey!_

_Sabo: *Do you know a Trafalgar D. Water Law?_

Luffy is looking at him expectantly once Law’s done reading the messages. There is a lot Law could say about that, like how did Luffy’s brother know his full name, but the more concerning question to raise to his mind is, “You’re not sure what my name is?”

Luffy huffs like he’s being an idiot. “Torao is Torao, but I did recognize this one as well, didn’t I?”

“I’m glad you did,” Law says, wanting to feel relieved, but somehow being unable to.

“So who is this boyfriend Ace says you have?” Luffy demands, avoiding Law’s hand that once again tries to hold his chin in order to keep him still.

“It’s _you_. Obviously,” Law says, and this time he’s successful in grabbing Luffy’s face.

For some reason, Luffy seems overjoyed by this, allowing Law to perform his task without much fuss, saying, “Really? Shishishi, that’s good, because mine is _you_.”

“I know that, Luffy-ya,” Law says, fighting back the urge to roll his eyes, yet smiling despite that. “We’ve been dating for months.”

He turns Luffy’s head from side to side in order to further inspect the damage now that nothing was covered in blood and whatever else had been on the ground when Luffy had “ _accidentally”_ fallen down whilst “ _roughhousing_ ” with his “ _friends_ ”. No amount of scolding would make Luffy stop getting into trouble every once in a while, so Law doesn’t even bother at this point. All he can do is patch him up afterwards.

“But why aren’t we dating in the rumours about us?” Luffy asks when he’s gotten the ok that his nose wasn’t broken. “I don’t like that.”

“How should I know?” Law shrugs, rolling over to the first aid kit with his embarrassing chair to get some band aids for the numerous cuts Luffy was littered with. “I never intended to keep it a secret and just assumed that people would find out eventually, but apparently not.”

“Where did these rumours even start?” Luffy wonders, kicking his legs back and forth until Law rolls back over to him and he has to stop.

Giving it a brief consideration, Law seems to remember something, which makes him say, “Ahem.”

“What?” Luffy asks, leaning in a bit.

“It was probably me, actually,” Law confesses, making Luffy laugh. “You know the person-at-the-coffee-shop-whose-ass-you-will-definitely-not-kick-just-to-defend-my-virtue? I’ve never felt the need to explain myself when I’ve told them no, but I guess last time I was too tired so I might have said I have no interest in them because I love my boyfriend.”

“Hehehe,” Luffy laughs again, the sound significantly more subdued now when compared to earlier, but coming from depths that made it seem a tenfold happier.

“What?” Law asks, refusing to feel embarrassed.

“You said you love me,” Luffy singsongs, his cheeks a bit red and a wide grin spread on his face.

“I’ve told you that before,” Law mutters back, busying himself by pulling off his gloves and putting away all the medical things Luffy’s treatment had required.

“But still!”

“And you’ve told me you love me plenty of times,” Law further argues, already knowing it’s a losing game even before Luffy hops down from the table and encircles his hands around Law’s neck, bringing them nose to injured nose.

They almost topple over, because Law’s stupid chair has no backrest, and Luffy leans on him with his full weight even if it isn’t that much, rubbing their cheeks together as he says, “Because it’s true!”

Deciding to just succumb to the situation and give up on trying to argue with someone like Luffy, Law wraps his own hands around Luffy’s back, unable to resist telling him, “You’re adorable.”

“Bleh, don’t say that.” Pulling back a bit, Luffy makes a face at him. “Gramps and my brothers call me cute when they want to make fun of me.”

Then he seems to remember something. “Oh yeah! I’ve been meaning to tell them but I always forget.”

The next thing Law knows is that Luffy pulls him in again, aims his phone’s camera at them in a bad angle and takes a picture. The little glimpse Law manages to see of the end result leaves him with the impression that Luffy looks too happy for someone with a bruised nose and Law looks dead behind the eyes, even though he would have preferred to look smug considering Luffy’s brothers were going to be the recipients. Before he can get a say in, however, Luffy has already sent the picture along with a message.

_Luffy: ya I know him Torao’s my bf!_

“I guess that settles that, then,” Law says, burying his head into the crook of Luffy’s neck because it was there and he could.

Luffy laughs, squirming because Law’s hair is tickly, and puts his phone away, not reading the messages that followed his announcement until much later.

_Ace: we though Zoro was your bf_

_Sabo: Wait, what do you mean by bf?!_

_Sabo: Luffy???_

“Yeah!” he agrees with Law, then getting excited when an idea strikes him. “We should go on a date to celebrate!”

“Sounds good to me,” says Law from where he is still hiding from the world.

He looks up only when Luffy struggles to rummage his pockets, eventually pulling his hand out to show Law the contents of it, telling him, “I have this much. It should be enough to get you one of those latte things you like, right?”

Law looks at the crumbled-up banknote and the few coins, then checks his own pockets and tosses a few more coins and a paperclip onto the pile. “There, now it should be enough to get you a juice as well.”

“I hope so!” Luffy says excitedly. Law is pretty sure there is nothing to hope for. People have the tendency to feed Luffy for free.

Then Luffy takes Law’s hand in his and pulls him up, quickly heading towards the door beyond which juice awaits. Just as he’s reached it, however, he stops and turns to look at Law.

“Hey,” he says as if it just occurred to him. “Isn’t the same coffee shop where that person-whose-ass-I-will-definitely-kick-if-they-bother-you-one-more-time visits and where you told everyone you loved me nearby?”

“Yes,” Law nods, already having a hunch where Luffy was going with this.

Luffy grins at him a bit mischievously. “Hehe.”

Law grins back, squeezes the hand in his and asks, “Do you want to go there and give everyone something more to talk about?”

“Yes! Let’s go!” Luffy says, and off they go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. <3


End file.
